The United States has better intelligence about North Korea than it has had in the past, but it will be "very, very difficult" to negotiate with the nation's leader, Kim Jong Un, and for the intelligence community to understand what is in store for the future, former CIA Director Jim Brennan said Friday.

"When I was in government, North Korea was probably the most difficult target to penetrate, as far as getting the insights into what Kim Jong Un and others are planning and thinking," Brennan, now NBC's chief intelligence analyst, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"I think over the years, U.S. intelligence, working with a lot of our partners, has increased our understanding of what's happening there, so I think we have better intelligence than we had before."

However, Kim "keeps his confidantes very much to a small group of individuals," said Brennan.

The fact that Kim sent high-level emissary Kim Yong Chol, a party vice chairman described as his right-hand man, to the United States "picks upon Trump's interest to have a summit."

"The North Koreans, I think, will want to have this summit, but I and many others believe that they have no intention at this point of denuclearizing," said Brennan.

Further, carrying off the summit will give Kim Jong Un the level of international acceptance he has been craving for years, Brennan pointed out.

"He wants to be seen as the international equivalent of the president of the United States," said Brennan. "He has clamored for this world stage spotlight.

"So, it's, I think, very important for him both this terms of his domestic standing but also for his ego to show that he was able to bring the president of the United States to a negotiating table without making any concessions on his nuclear program."

Kim has said he would dismantle the country's nuclear test site, "but by all accounts, it was near collapse, so I don't see anything he has given so far, but yet we have given what I think is a premiere prize, which is a stage, an international and very public stage, with the president of the United States."